Three heavy-duty Atlas Copco breakers, supplied by Sandhurst to NFDC demolition contractor DDS Demolition, are at work destroying reinforced concrete structures during a rebar mill clear-up at Sheerness Steel works on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

Atlas Copco breakers supplied by Sandhurst were HB2200, HB3600 and HB4200 units. These immensely powerful breakers weighing two, three and four tonnes respectively were purchased to suit DDS Komatsu’s working on the site: PC290, PC350, PC360, PC450 and a PC490.

DDS demolition, of Manston, East Kent, leading demolition, reclamation and site clearing specialists were preferred for the Peel Port Wellmarsh tear-down and site clear up contract, estimated to be worth up to £3m, over a 52 week project term.

Steel was first produced at the Sheerness site in 2003 but production furnaces and a large rolling mill on the 53-acre site had been left untouched since the specialist rebar steelworks was closed in 2012. A decision was finally made to develop parts of the site and demolition work commenced in 2016.

DDS Demolition predominantly used hydraulic shears and grabs to remove much of the steel building fabrication and steel-making infrastructure, during phases one and two, each lasting 18 weeks.

Phase three, scheduled to take 26 weeks, included the serious challenge of breaking and removing thousands of tons of heavily reinforced concrete machine plinths, push walls and reinforced foundations. DDS decided some additional high productivity hydraulic breakers were needed to help deliver the project on time.

DDS Demolition and Sandhurst are both well-established, each having over 40 years’ industry experience. As longstanding Sandhurst customers, DDS have had great experience of Sandhurst’s rental service used over the years when extra breakers and other attachments are needed.

Although Sandhurst operates Europe’s largest Atlas Copco Breaker rental fleet and could have supplied rental breakers, on this occasion DDS thought buying was the right solution.

DDS Group buyer, Lee Pooley, said: “We faced some very heavy breaking on this job and wanted proven breakers with the capability of efficiently punching into heavily reinforced structures. We’ve hired Atlas Copco breakers and attachments for years from Sandhurst and know we can rely on Sandhurst as an attachment supplier as much as we can for the efficiency and performance of their Atlas Copco breakers. We felt buying was the right decision for us this time if we could get the right offer, so we called Peter Dean of Sandhurst who matched Atlas Copco breakers to three of our Komatsu’s and we shook hands on a deal we were really happy with”.